Dutch Courage & Other Stories: “Life is not always a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.”

By Jack London

John Griffith "Jack" London was born John Griffith Chaney on January 12th, 1876 in San Francisco. His father, William Chaney, was living with his mother Flora Wellman when she became pregnant. Chaney insisted she have an abortion. Flora's response was to turn a gun on herself. Although her wounds were not severe the trauma made her temporarily deranged. In late 1876 his mother married John London and the young child was brought to live with them as they moved around the Bay area, eventually settling in Oakland where Jack completed grade school. Jack also worked hard at several jobs, sometimes 12-18 hours a day, but his dream was university. He was lent money for that and after intense studying enrolled in the summer of 1896 at the University of California in Berkeley. In 1897, at 21 , Jack searched out newspaper accounts of his mother's suicide attempt and the name of his biological father. He wrote to William Chaney, then living in Chicago. Chaney said he could not be London's father because he was impotent; and casually asserted that London's mother had relations with other men. Jack, devastated by the response, quit Berkeley and went to the Klondike. Though equally because of his continuing dire finances Jack might have taken that as the excuse he needed to leave. In the Klondike Jack began to gather material for his writing but also accumulated many health problems, including scurvy, hip and leg problems many of which he then carried for life. By the late 1890's Jack was regularly publishing short stories and by the turn of the century full blown novels. By 1904 Jack had married, fathered two children and was now in the process of divorcing. A stint as a reporter on the Russo-Japanese war of 1904 was equal amounts trouble and experience. But that experience was always put to good use in a remarkable output of work. Twelve years later Jack had amassed a wealth of writings many of which remain world classics. He had a reputation as a social activist and a tireless friend of the workers. And yet on November 22nd 1916 Jack London died in a cottage on his ranch at the age of only 40. Here we present Dutch Courage & Other Stories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Copyright Group
• Release date: Aug 19, 2014
• ISBN: 9781783942510

Jack London

Jack London (1876-1916) was an American novelist and journalist. Born in San Francisco to Florence Wellman, a spiritualist, and William Chaney, an astrologer, London was raised by his mother and her husband, John London, in Oakland. An intelligent boy, Jack went on to study at the University of California, Berkeley before leaving school to join the Klondike Gold Rush. His experiences in the Klondike—hard labor, life in a hostile environment, and bouts of scurvy—both shaped his sociopolitical outlook and served as powerful material for such works as “To Build a Fire” (1902), The Call of the Wild (1903), and White Fang (1906). When he returned to Oakland, London embarked on a career as a professional writer, finding success with novels and short fiction. In 1904, London worked as a war correspondent covering the Russo-Japanese War and was arrested several times by Japanese authorities. Upon returning to California, he joined the famous Bohemian Club, befriending such members as Ambrose Bierce and John Muir. London married Charmian Kittredge in 1905, the same year he purchased the thousand-acre Beauty Ranch in Sonoma County, California. London, who suffered from numerous illnesses throughout his life, died on his ranch at the age of 40. A lifelong advocate for socialism and animal rights, London is recognized as a pioneer of science fiction and an important figure in twentieth century American literature.

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Dutch Courage & Other Stories by Jack London

John Griffith Jack London was born John Griffith Chaney on January 12th, 1876 in San Francisco. 

His father, William Chaney, was living with his mother Flora Wellman when she became pregnant.  Chaney insisted she have an abortion.  Flora's response was to turn a gun on herself.  Although her wounds were not severe the trauma made her temporarily deranged.

In late 1876 his mother married John London and the young child was brought to live with them as they moved around the Bay area, eventually settling in Oakland where Jack completed grade school.

Jack also worked hard at several jobs, sometimes 12-18 hours a day, but his dream was university.  He was lent money for that and after intense studying enrolled in the summer of 1896 at the University of California in Berkeley.

In 1897, at 21 , Jack searched out newspaper accounts of his mother's suicide attempt and the name of his biological father. He wrote to William Chaney, then living in Chicago. Chaney said he could not be London's father because he was impotent; and casually asserted that London's mother had relations with other men.  Jack, devastated by the response, quit Berkeley and went to the Klondike. Though equally because of his continuing dire finances Jack might have taken that as the excuse he needed to leave.

In the Klondike Jack began to gather material for his writing but also accumulated many health problems, including scurvy, hip and leg problems many of which he then carried for life.

By the late 1890's Jack was regularly publishing short stories and by the turn of the century full blown novels.

By 1904 Jack had married, fathered two children and was now in the process of divorcing.  A stint as a reporter on the Russo-Japanese war of 1904 was equal amounts trouble and experience. But that experience was always put to good use in a remarkable output of work.

Twelve years later Jack had amassed a wealth of writings many of which remain world classics. He had a reputation as a social activist and a tireless friend of the workers.  And yet on November 22nd 1916 Jack London died in a cottage on his ranch at the age of only 40.

Index Of Contents

PREFACE

DUTCH COURAGE  

TYPHOON OFF THE COAST OF JAPAN  

THE LOST POACHER  

THE BANKS OF THE SACRAMENTO  

CHRIS FARRINGTON: ABLE SEAMAN  

TO REPEL BOARDERS  

AN ADVENTURE IN THE UPPER SEA  

BALD-FACE  

IN YEDDO BAY  

WHOSE BUSINESS IS TO LIVE

JACK LONDON – A SHORT BIOGRAPHY

JACK LONDON – A CONCISE BIBLIOGRAPHY

PREFACE

I've never written a line that I'd be ashamed for my young daughters to read, and I never shall write such a line!

Thus Jack London, well along in his career. And thus almost any collection of his adventure stories is acceptable to young readers as well as to their elders. So, in sorting over the few manuscripts still unpublished in book form, while most of them were written primarily for boys and girls, I do not hesitate to include as appropriate a tale such as Whose Business Is to Live.

Number two of the present group, Typhoon Off the Coast of Japan, is the first story ever written by Jack London for publication. At the age of seventeen he had returned from his deep-water voyage in the sealing schooner Sophie Sutherland, and was working thirteen hours a day for forty dollars a month in an Oakland, California, jute mill. The San Francisco Call offered a prize of twenty-five dollars for the best written descriptive article. Jack's mother, Flora London, remembering that I had excelled in his school compositions, urged him to enter the contest by recalling some happening of his travels. Grammar school, years earlier, had been his sole disciplined education. But his wide reading, worldly experience, and extraordinary powers of observation and correlation, enabled him to command first prize. It is notable that the second and third awards went to students at California and Stanford universities.

Jack never took the trouble to hunt up that old San Francisco Call of November 12, 1893; but when I came to write his biography, The Book of Jack London, I unearthed the issue, and the tale appears intact in my English edition, published in 1921. And now, gathering material for what will be the final Jack London collections, I cannot but think that his first printed story will have unusual interest for his readers of all ages.

The boy Jack's unexpected success in that virgin venture naturally spurred him to further effort. It was, for one thing, the pleasantest way he had ever earned so much money, even if it lacked the element of physical prowess and danger that had marked those purple days with the oyster pirates, and, later, equally exciting passages with the Fish Patrol. He only waited to catch up on sleep lost while hammering out Typhoon Off the Coast of Japan, before applying himself to new fiction. That was what was the matter with it: it was sheer fiction in place of the white-hot realism of the true story that had brought him distinction. This second venture he afterward termed gush. It was promptly rejected by the editor of the Call. Lacking experience in such matters, Jack could not know why. And it did not occur to him to submit his manuscript elsewhere. His fire was dampened; he gave over writing and continued with the jute mill and innocent social diversion in company with Louis Shattuck and his friends, who had superseded Jack's wilder comrades and hazards of bay- and sea-faring. This period, following the publication of Typhoon Off the Coast of Japan, is touched upon in his book John Barleycorn.

The next that one hears of attempts at writing is when, during his tramping episode, he showed some stories to his aunt, Mrs. Everhard, in St. Joseph, Michigan. And in the ensuing months of that year, 1894, she received other romances mailed at his stopping places along the eastward route, alone or with Kelly's Industrial Army. As yet it had not sunk into his consciousness that his unyouthful knowledge of life in the raw would be the means of success in literature; therefore he discoursed of imaginary things and persons, lords and ladies, days of chivalry and what not, anything but out of his priceless first-hand lore. At the same time, however, he kept a small diary which, in the days when he had found himself, helped in visualizing his tramp life, in The Road.

The only out and out juvenile in the Jack London list prior to his death is The Cruise of the Dazzler, published in 1902. At that it is a good and authentic maritime study of its kind, and not lacking in honest thrills. Tales of the Fish Patrol comes next as a book for boys; but the happenings told therein are perilous enough to interest many an older reader.

I am often asked which of his books have made the strongest appeal to youth. The impulse is to answer that it depends upon the particular type of youth. As example, there lies before me a letter from a friend: Ruth (she is eleven) has been reading every book of your husband's that she can get hold of. She is crazy over the stories. I have bought nearly all of them, but cannot find 'The Son of the Wolf,' 'Moon Face,' and 'Michael Brother of Jerry.' Will you tell me where I can order these? I have not yet learned Ruth's favorites; but I smile to myself at thought of the re-reading she may have to do when her mind has more fully developed.

The youth of every country who read Jack London naturally turn to his adventure stories, particularly The Call of the Wild and its companion White Fang, The Sea Wolf, The Cruise of the Snark, and my own journal, The Log of the Snark, and Our Hawaii, Smoke Bellew Tales, Adventure, The Mutiny of the Elsinore, as well as Before Adam, The Game, The Abysmal Brute, The Road, Jerry of the Islands and its sequel Michael Brother of Jerry. And because of the last named, the youth of many lands are enrolling in the famous Jack London Club. This was inspired by Dr. Francis H. Bowley, President of the Massachusetts S.P.C.A. The Club expects no dues. Membership is automatic through the mere promise to leave any playhouse during an animal performance. The protest thereby registered is bound, in good time, to do away with the abuses that attend animal training for show purposes. Michael Brother of Jerry was written out of Jack London's heart of love and head of understanding of animals, aided by a years'-long study of the conditions of which he treats. Incidentally this book contains one of the most charming bits of seafaring romance of the Southern Ocean that he ever wrote.

During the Great War, the English speaking soldiers called freely for the foregoing novels, dubbing them The Jacklondons; and there was also lively demand for Burning Daylight, The Scarlet Plague, The Star Rover, The Little Lady of the Big House, The Valley of the Moon, and, because of its prophetic spirit, The Iron Heel. There was likewise a desire for the short-story collections, such as The God of His Fathers, Children of the Frost, The Faith of Men, Love of Life, Lost Face, When God Laughs, and later groups like South Sea Tales, A Son of the Sun, The Night Born, and The House of Pride, and a long list beside.

But for the serious minded youth of America, Great Britain, and all countries where Jack London's work has been translated, youth considering life with a purpose, Martin Eden is the beacon. Passing years only augment the number of messages that find their way to me from near and far, attesting the worth to thoughtful boys and girls, young men and women, of the author's own formative struggle in life and letters as partially outlined in Martin Eden.

The present sheaf of young folk's stories were written during the latter part of that battle for recognition, and my gathering of them inside book covers is pursuant of his own intention at the time of his death on November 22, 1916.

CHARMIAN LONDON.

Jack London Ranch,    

Glen Ellen, Sonoma County, California.      

August 1, 1922.

DUTCH COURAGE

Just our luck!

Gus Lafee finished wiping his hands and sullenly threw the towel upon the rocks. His attitude was one of deep dejection. The light seemed gone out of the day and the glory from the golden sun. Even the keen mountain air was devoid of relish, and the early morning no longer yielded its customary zest.

Just our luck! Gus repeated, this time avowedly for the edification of another young fellow who was busily engaged in sousing his head in the water of the lake.

What are you grumbling about, anyway? Hazard Van Dorn lifted a soap-rimmed face questioningly. His eyes were shut. What's our luck?

Look there! Gus threw a moody glance skyward. Some duffer's got ahead of us. We've been scooped, that's all!

Hazard opened his eyes, and caught a fleeting glimpse of a white flag waving arrogantly on